Today, across the country, court rooms are sitting empty. Just look at the shocking figures below. Meanwhile crimes as serious as rape and sexual assault are being listed for trial in 2027 and beyond. Victims are being forced to put their lives on hold. AND the population waiting trial on remand in our prisons (one of the biggest reasons for the capacity pressures) remains high as trials are delayed. There are currently 17,600 people in prison on remand. That’s 20% of the entire prison population. The proportion of prisoners on remand has increased by 9 per cent on last year. You’d think Labour would be doing everything possible to solve this? But yesterday the most senior civil servant at the Ministry of Justice said the court backlog was likely to get even worse. The Lady Chief Justice has said there is capacity in the system for 6,500 sitting days. But, inexplicably, Labour have only providing funding for an extra 2,500 sitting days. That means there are 4,000 sitting days a year being completely wasted. She says the government are “not saving money” by rationing court capacity. They are making a difficult situation, worse. There are literally part-time judges volunteering to hear cases for free, but can’t because of the lack of capacity in the courts. Existing judges are being forced to remove cases from their lists. This is not the choice of the judiciary, or that of hardworking ushers, clerks and listing officers who do such important work. Labour’s plan is failing. They have launched (another) review, but that won’t report for months when they could add sitting days right now. Their incompetence is badly letting down victims and eroding trust in the criminal justice system.